2013 Malaysian Grand Prix stats and facts

Sebastian Vettel’s Malaysian Grand Prix may not have been popular, but it raised him ever higher among the ranks of the sport’s most successful drivers.

It was the 27th victory of his career, drawing him level with Jackie Stewart. Vettel’s fellow thrice-champion took 99 races to rack up that many wins – the Red Bull driver needed four more.

The pair are tied for sixth place on the list of drivers who have won the most races. It puts Vettel three wins behind Fernando Alonso, who is F1’s most successful active driver.

Vettel joined Alonso and Michael Schumacher as three-times winners of the Malaysian Grand Prix – no one has won it more times than that.

It was the thirteenth one-two finish for Red Bull – out of those Vettel led ten and Mark Webber led three, though that is a touchy subject at the moment. Vettel also claimed his 38th pole position.

200 appearances for Webber and Alonso

Two drivers marked their 200th participations in F1 race weekends but neither were happy with the outcome.

Webber lost a potential victory to his team mate in a row over team orders. And shortly after Ferrari marked Alonso’s 200th race weekend participation, he retired from the race on lap two. The only consolation to be drawn from this is at least Ferrari have got better at counting how many races their drivers have been in.

Both Alonso and Webber have appeared at 200 races but only started 198. Neither driver took the start at Indianapolis in 2005 due to the mass withdrawal of Michelin runners. And both failed to start one race each during their first seasons with Minardi.

Alonso retired with a gearbox failure after the initial start of the 2001 Belgian Grand Prix. But that race was abandoned and a new race declared, which Alonso could not start. The following year in Spain Webber and team mate Alex Yoong did not start the race as both Minardis were withdrawn due to rear wing faults.

Hamilton led home fourth placed Nico Rosberg, giving Mercedes their best combined result since they returned to F1 as a factory team in 2010.

Sergio Perez and his Sauber successor Nico Hulkenberg scored their first points for their new teams as well. Perez also set the race’s fastest lap, the second time he has done so in his career.

60 in a row for McLaren

It may have been a rough start to the year for McLaren but they have maintained their run of consecutive races in the points – which is already a record – to 60.

Ferrari have scored for the last 50 races in a row and need five more to match their best-ever streak which began at the 1999 Malaysian Grand Prix and lasted until the same race four years later.

However Force India’s best-ever run of ten consecutive races in the points came to an end.

As for drivers, Kimi Raikkonen finished in the points for the 19th race in a row, and needs five more to match Michael Schumacher’s record of 24. The next race on the calendar is at the only track where he failed to score last year: Shanghai.

It’s now 4 races in a row where Alonso has been outqualified. I’m not sure this has ever happened!

Felipe Massa also now has more points than the Spaniard, I believe this hasn’t occurred since China 2010.

This is the first time JEV has finished in the points where he didn’t finish in 8th place.

It was the first double failure to finish for Force India since Japan 2010.

4 points from the first two races is the worst amount for McLaren since 2009, where they had 1 point (in old money) from Hamilton’s 7th place in the half-point Malaysian Grand Prix. In today’s money that would count for 3 points.

@cg22me – No, because these people are competing against Vettel. On the other hand, it’s Mark job to race Vettel and everyone else, which he usually does well (hence 9 wins). But Red Bull’s best chance for the driver’s championship is obvious.

Well, fair point. It isn’t “obvious” this year yet, so it is arguably unfait to dismiss them.

But still, Massa and Webber have to match or beat their teammates far more often to convince me that they are genuinely evenly matched with their teammates, rather than just going through a rare hike in form.

?? are you being sarcastic? success judged by wins in such a sport is the most basic barometer to go by – as the drivers themselves say that what they aim to achieve is wins. success is one thing, i think you are trying to talk about a barometer of skill – which does not always equal the baometer of success.

Most drivers have not won any championships, which rather limits its utility in comparing different drivers. Championships are used in comparing champions, often. Though even there you can get a pretty heated argument going over whether Prosts 4 WDC’s make him better than Senna with 3, and so on.

The ‘most succesful’ driver isn’t necessarily the ‘best’ driver: there is of course a strong correllation between the two, but drivers like Stirling Moss, who is regarded as one of the best drivers in F1 history, is less succesful than a lot of other drivers in F1.

The number of wins is certainly one measure, even if it’a not the only one.

Jackie Stewart is living proof, however, that you don’t have to be ruthless to the point of abandoning all principles – as Gerhard Berger suggested was the case when defending Vettel this weekend – in order to be a great champion.

Here’s what I noticed:
It is now 49 races since any team apart from Red Bull finished 1-2. There have been 7 1-2 finishes since then and Red Bull have clinched them all.
In the old(2003-2009) points-paying system, McLaren would’ve got zero points, their worst start since 2000.
Nico Hulkenberg and Lewis Hamilton maintained their 100 % points-finish record at Sepang.
This was Felipe Massa’s first front-row start since Bahrain 2010.
There were more, but my memory’s failed :(

Some more stats which I forgot:
1. Lotus’s 3rd 6-7 finish in 9 races.
2. Romain Grosjean finished ahead of Kimi Raikkonen for the first time in the last 15 races.
3. Sergio Perez emulated his McLaren predecessor Lewis Hamilton in taking the fastest lap in his second start for the team, both at Sepang.
4. The last 3 race weekends have had at least one official session to be disturbed by rain. Considering that the next weekend is Shanghai, there’s a pretty good chance of making it 4.
5. Fernando Alonso’s last non-podium points finish was back in Hungary last year. That’s 11 races now(and counting…)

As ever, Kubica’s an accident waiting to happen. It’s about time he hung up his helmet and thanked his lucky stars he’s (just about) made it through alive. Always quicker than he is capable of driving…

I’m going to call him “The Cat” from now on because he definitely has 9 lives. Although if you count his crash at the Canadian gp in 2007, the rally crash that ended his F1 career and this recent one yesterday, he has 6 lives left!

I agree with you regarding him being overrated. He definitely had the talent and potential to become a WDC, but alas, we’ll never know now. I do cringe when people refer to Kubica as if he’s a 5-time WDC, it does my head in (such as when Alonso said that Kub was better than him).

While I completely sympathise with Kubica and I am sad he’s not in F1, only one person decided to do rallying in the off-season and that was Kubica himself. I guess relative to Kimi and Webber you could say he has been unfortunate I guess, but drivers fully focussed on F1 should be staying away from getting injured in the off-season. Perhaps I’m being too harsh, but you could also argue he is fortunate to still be alive… based on both of these crashes.

You’re right, the Hamilton effect has already kicked in. This is the kind of progress that only a top driver can bring to a team, which is precisely why Mercedes broke the bank to acquire him (a fact that almost certainly played a part in Brawn’s decision yesterday to halt Rosberg’s podium push).

It’s one of those things where if you invest a lot in staff in the engineering dept. etc you may as well go all out rather than waste it on a driver who can’t do the car justice. I’ve a huge amount of respect for nico but I feel, until he has a chance to prove himself, he’s still an unknown quantity when it gets down to championship crunchtime.

I actually think Rosberg has just as much pace as Hamilton, but in the crucial moments at times he has not delivered – I think Hamilton seems to keep his cool a bit better in certain situations. I really think it’s going to be a close battle though – certainly closer than Nico vs Schumacher that’s for sure.

It was the thirteenth one-two finish for Red Bull â€“ out of those Vettel led ten and Mark Webber led three, though that is a touchy subject at the moment

As much as people don’t like it, statistics just register the “cold numbers”, such as Rubens-assisted Schum victories, crash-gate assisted victories, Michelin-assisted podium for Jordan at Indy, etc, etc

That is what F1 is all about, the facts. Whether we like it or not emotions play no part in winning. Too many people are judging the situation from an emotional standpoint, rather than a factual one. When we lavish praise on Schumi and reminisce his 91 race wins, we don’t subtract the Barrichello assisted wins, or disregard his 1994 WDC because he crashed into Hill. History remembers only the facts, and the fact is, Vettel won yesterdays GP. FACT.

I completely agree with you here. Formula One is a complex sport, rewarding success for teams and individuals. If an individual is at a top-end team (VET at Red Bull, HAM at McLaren since childhood, MSC at Ferrari between 2000 and 2004, Senna at McLaren etc), then of course they are more likely to win!

I sometimes despair of the double standards of some people who will in the same breath criticise Vettel for being supported by the Red Bull hierachy, then praise Hamilton for being an amazing driver (despite being supported by the same sort of scheme with the same sort of connotations and, until this season, backing).

In pure fact, Vettel has won 27 Grands Prix. He has won three World Driver’s Championships…in a row. He is a very successful driver, and success always provides division.

And when we lavish praise on Senna we donâ€™t knock him for winning all three of his WDCâ€™s in what was, by a huge margin, the best car on the grid at the time.

Exactly!! So why does everyone feel the need to constantly belittle Vettel by saying that he’s only a 3-time WDC because he had the fastest car? If Senna deserved his championships, surely Seb deserves his.

When we lavish praise on Schumi and reminisce his 91 race wins, we donâ€™t subtract the Barrichello assisted wins, or disregard his 1994 WDC because he crashed into Hill

Actually, I do. I also disregard 2004 and 2002 in parcticular, and do the same for 2011.

And when we lavish praise on Senna we donâ€™t knock him for winning all three of his WDCâ€™s in what was, by a huge margin, the best car on the grid at the time.
Exactly!! So why does everyone feel the need to constantly belittle Vettel by saying that heâ€™s only a 3-time WDC because he had the fastest car? If Senna deserved his championships, surely Seb deserves his.

Because he beat Prost, that’s why. It’s the almost direct equivalent Alonso being at RB, and him beating Alonso.

Two of them. The Williams FW14 was definitely faster than the McLaren for the majority of 1991; on the other hand it was less reliable. In any case, I don’t think his car gave Senna an *advantage* over Mansell.

Facts will be read by people who have no memory and read books and use Internet for stats but keen followers will remember the facts of Schumacher cheating for his first world championship and Senna’s death may have taken away his 94 & 95 titles

Just like vettel only deserving 2011 title

2010 he was lucky Ferrari stuffed up last race after red bull didn’t back webber and backed vettel and almost gave Ferrari title

2012 Alonso losing by only 3 points in an inferior car

They might not be stats but they are still facts by the avid follower

Everyone knows webbers race in Malaysia which is probably why most people on this forum voted him driver of the race

2010 he was lucky Ferrari stuffed up last race after red bull didnâ€™t back webber and backed vettel and almost gave Ferrari title

2012 Alonso losing by only 3 points in an inferior car

That’s BS. Ferrari stuff up 1 race, and we ought to forget the rest of the season? Webber has no mechanical DNFs, still can’t outscore his teammate, and the team should back him?

In 2012, though Alonso drove a great season, so did Vettel, in a car that was less reliable than the Ferrari, and had less speed than the Mclaren. It was a competitive season between at least 3 teams. The winner “deserved” it as 2nd place would have “deserved” it, had he won.

Everyone knows webbers race in Malaysia which is probably why most people on this forum voted him driver of the race

To be honest, Vettel never wins DOTW anyway, for whatever excuse. Doesn’t mean he didn’t deserve his 3 world titles and 27 wins.

And Schumacher won the championship in 94, and did so even more convincingly in 95. Don’t disrespectfully play the pointless “if” game.

As for the Rubens assit wins comment, that’s really a biased emotional view. Cause then we have the Berger assist wins for Senna. The Johannson assist wins for Prost… Oh, and the Patrese assist wins for Mansell. The list is endless, we might as well strip every driver of their wins, and give the trophies to their team mates.

This is the first time as a Ferrari driver Felipe Massa has more points than his team mate after the two first races of a season (he was ahead of RĂ¤ikkĂ¶nen in 2009 both none of them had scored any points).

Both in Australia and Malaysia, the last 15 races (1999-2013) have only been won by European drivers (Eddie Irvine, Michael Schumacher, Ralf Schumacher, David Coulthard, Kimi Raikkonen, Fernando Alonso, Giancarlo Fisichella, Lewis Hamilton, Jenson Button, Sebastian Vettel)

Also, before Vettel, previous driver who has had one pole and one win in first two races without getting them in the same race is Michael Schumacher in 2002. Before that Damon Hill in 1995 and Ayrton Senna in 1990.

I wonder if RedBull were giving Mark the win because of his 200th appearance thing and thats why everybody was so upset when Vettel overtook him, since no one was half this angry with Mark after he ignored team orders at Silverstone in 2011. If that was the case and the agreement was that in case of a 1-2 finish Mark should win than I understand why he was so upset, on the other hand take 7 points away from Vettel’s end of season tally and he only has a single WDC.
Nice stats by the way.